This project uses molecular and histochemical techniques to examine how the loss of gonadal function (loss of circulating gonadal steroids) affects the expression of growth factors, growth factor receptors, and enzymes which are implicated in learning and memory processes and in age and disease-related cognitive decline. My use of the supercomputing center will be primarily to search and retrieve nucleic acid sequences for nucleic acid database such as GENEBANK, to perform sequence comparisons, generate restriction maps of gene sequences, examine secondary structure of RNA transcripts all for the purpose of generating nucleic acid probes for use in performing hybridization histochemistry to detect and quantify mRNAs in brain tissue.